


Seven Storey Mountain

by invisibledeity



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Allegory, Gen, Hero's Journey, Promdyn, Purgatory, Rape Recovery, and about how much of a dick bahamut is, bahamut is not kind, but I'm tagging promdyn anyway so people can avoid if need be, however unwillingly, it's more about prompto's inner journey, it's not specifically about prompto and ardyn's relationship, recovery fic, references to La Divina Commedia are strong in this one, tagged as graphic violence for visions in later chapters, tagged as rape/noncon for references of past abuse, what would the astrals do to someone who once submitted to the Accursed?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 05:55:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14230770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/invisibledeity/pseuds/invisibledeity
Summary: For anyone to ever submit to the Accursed, no matter how unwillingly, is seen by the Astrals as a failure of spirit.It begins on the day Prompto dies.‘You do not discover yourself in a dark wood. You do not pay the ferryman a fee. You skip the realms of unceasing torture, for he has already put you through so much.’





	Seven Storey Mountain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [medical_mechanica](https://archiveofourown.org/users/medical_mechanica/gifts).



> This is a gift for medical_mechanica, who requested that I write something about Prompto, Ardyn and the concept of Purgatory.

 

The day Prompto died, he got a call from Gentiana. Right though to his cellphone, like it was no big deal, like she was an old friend calling up to shoot the breeze. In a way, she was.

            He hadn’t been doing much before he got the call — only polishing the gears on an old piece of Magitek machinery — so at first, he didn’t realise anything was amiss. Then, something weird happened in his chest. A pressure on the breastbone, and at the back of the neck. The world tilted to the side and he remembered the agonising pain that followed — sharp as a blade slicing in — but it had been quickly replaced by a sort of numb buzzing, like a limb gone to sleep.

            The buzzing became a vibration in the pocket of his jeans, and he reached for the phone, dimly noting how odd it was that his muscles moved so slowly. It was all out of time with his body, all stilted. If his body were a record it would be skipping. He ignored that. Spoke. Wondered who would be calling him so late at night.

            ‘Heya, Prompto here.’ He was so tired, and still he couldn’t keep the pep out of his voice. Reflex actions, maybe.

            The voice that greeted him was silken and hit his ears like the tinkling of tiny frost-rimed bells.

            ‘The King’s loyal companion. You remember me, don’t you?’         

            ‘Gentiana.’

            ‘The very same.’

            ‘Why are you… calling me?’

            ‘Unto you alone I come now, because time grows short, and the brightest star hangs low in the west.’

            Cryptic words, as ever, from the Divine Messenger. Prompto fumbled.

            ‘Wait, I didn’t… I didn’t know you had a phone?’ The words, once out of his mouth, seemed idiotic, a bundle of levity next to Gentiana’s grace.

            A soft laugh followed, and yeah, he felt pretty stupid.

            ‘My dear child, I do not mean to alarm you. But I sensed it had come, and true enough… oh, I can see the sad trail it leaves in the hollow of your chest, poor thing.’

            ‘What?’

            He looked down at his chest. He seemed fine. He felt fine. A little numb, but otherwise okay. He pressed the area, curious, feeling around, and eventually Gentiana gave him the clue.

            ‘A major heart infarction. For lack of a clearer way of saying it, you are dead.’

            ‘What do you mean, _dead_?’

            ‘I mean exactly that, my bright little star. Your time has come, and greet the Gods you must.’

            Right.

            So that jolt, that blinding stab of pain?

            Fuck.

            He had barely passed the age of forty. Another ten long years without Noctis, well, perhaps that was only fitting. Maybe he’d get to see him again.

            Gods, it was all so ridiculous. He was standing right here, real as ever, not some spectral form staring down at an inert body like the movies had taught him these things went. He could still pick up the rag he’d been using to polish the machinery. He could feel every inch of its texture beneath his fingertips.

            ‘You sure this isn’t just some trick? C’mon, I mean… You don’t even have a phone, why would you…’

            ‘My message comes in whatever form the receiver takes comfort in.’

            As if that helped any. 

            He didn’t know what else to do, so he kept her on the phone, idly talking about his day — _been working on a new circular saw model, y’know, it’s not great but Cindy seems to like it_ — as he trod down the stairs to the garage’s lower level. Upper level was his, more than most of the time. His place to tinker, his place to work.

            Cindy was usually still working on the cars far below, but it wasn’t all that uncommon for her to head to bed before midnight. That must have been the case tonight, and it was no cause for alarm. Should have been no cause for alarm, at least, but he couldn’t help but feel the panic. It claimed him inch by inch, in little phrases; _what if Gentiana’s right? What if she’s telling the truth? What reason has she to lie?_

            Well. Time to get back to his quarters. He turned off the garage lights, and opened the sheet door.

 

The instant he left the garage, a blast of wind greeted him, sweeping in from across what should have been an asphalt courtyard. Instead, it was a soft, mossy green field of rushes, all muted and sombre as though it had only just stopped raining. Distant birdsong in his ears; ocean birds. Again, strange.

            He had to be dreaming.

            One step forward into the rushes and his workboots left soft imprints in the loamy soil, imprints that filled slowly with water. He hitched in his breath, stepped back onto the last vestige of solid ground, the entrance of the garage, and looked back to the phone in his hand. Back to home screen. Gentiana had hung up.

            No; she was in front of him now. Appearing just like she had with Noctis, by the old chocobo post, leaving them all one degree further from sanity with her erratic coming-and-going. Prompto blinked.

            ‘You… how did…?’ The words trailed off as Gentiana smiled. So much knowing, in that smile.

            His heart felt strange, and already the memory of why that was important was slipping away. He moved forward again, but as before the sluggishness returned, a poison to his veins, threading its way through every muscle. As in dreams where running just didn’t work.

            ‘To make the crossing properly, you have only to reach out.’

            Prompto frowned. Tried again. Was met with resistance.

            ‘I was wondering if… actually, if you could tell me…’ He waited for her to confirm a desire to help, but she simply stood patiently. Turned the waiting back on him. So he continued. ‘How do I cross?’

            ‘It’s not dissimilar to reaching into the Armiger,’ she said.

            Not dissimilar to the Armiger. Okay. He could do this.

            He moved his wrist, as if summoning his gun. Felt the crystalline fragments in the veiled world react to his intent. The world behind the curtain. Something there all along. He felt it, reached for it, and sensed the world turn.

            The pivot-point was the zero-gravity cusp of a rollercoaster’s dip. It was the spin of a coin set into motion on a dealer’s table, it was the way the floor rushed to greet the face of a drunken man after too many expeditions to the end of a bottle. He reeled under its grasp, then felt loam and silt beneath his hands.

            He choked with lungs that seemed somehow devoid of air, and dug his fingers into the soft pulp, pushed himself upright.

            Above him, a mountain rose into misted air, spectral and grey.

            The first thing he thought of was Ravatogh. He said so aloud, breathing the words out more to himself than anything.

            ‘I’m afraid not,’ Gentiana said, and it caught him off-guard just how much like Ardyn’s her speech pattern was. The similarity had never struck him before. Is that where the man had learned it from?

            So he looked more closely this time. Where the rushes met the waterline, the silt clustered in clumps. Tufts of waterweed gave way to regular grass, a pattern that continued further in until it reached small bushes, and finally trees.

            More greens and greys than the dust-heavy browns of the volcano. Not Ravatogh. It didn’t make sense with the water anyway.

            The vegetation at the edges of the mountain looked heavy, saturated with humidity, and it was hard to tell if it was rising from the ground — a sign of warmer climes — or falling from the air — a sign of the cold.

            Maybe it was both, and that made no sense until the memory came back. The basin, of course, how could he ever have forgotten?

            ‘Risorath,’ he said, and this time Gentiana smiled in that eerie way of hers, with eyes closed.

            ‘In a manner of speaking. But, my child, look behind you.’

            He did, and realised he was on an island. Behind him, the expanse of the sea; flat, glassy, static. While his mouth fell open, Gentiana began her lection.

            ‘You do not discover yourself in a dark wood. You do not pay the ferryman a fee. You skip the realms of unceasing torture, for he has already put you through so much.’

            She didn’t say _Ardyn_ , but then again, she didn’t need to.

            ‘What do you mean, _skip?’_

 _‘_ You are not evil, despite your impure origins.’

            ‘Wow, okay. Thanks.’ Hard going, to keep the sarcasm at bay. He found himself idly thumbing the barcode tattooed on his wrist.

            ‘Do not be so ungracious.’

_She’s a goddess. She does not say please. She simply expects._

Prompto thought about this, and decided not to say anything. After an age of feeling the soft wind hit his cheeks, he turned back to Gentiana when she began again to speak.

            ‘Your purgatory will be as gentle as the soul that returns to God. You will find no harshness here.’

            Right.

            ‘That’s meant to make me feel…’ — he stopped short of saying _better_ — ‘what, exactly?’

            She ignored him, and in place of a response, she said, ‘Who was your guide or who your lantern, to lead you forth from that deep night?’

            ‘Are you talking about why I didn’t… After he…’ Prompto still couldn’t quite bring himself to say the name aloud. _Noctis._

            Gentiana merely smiled. It was a sly smile, an almost insulting smile, as if she knew him better than he himself did. As if the fact that he would never have actually gone through with it was so painfully, nakedly written onto his flesh. As if it was obvious that when he did go, he would have gone to natural causes. He wanted to say something, to hide, to rebel, but all that happened was he stared hard at the swaying rushes, feeling like stone next to their fluidity.

            As abruptly as she came, she left him alone. The path before him opened up like a flower and he sighed, breath misting in the air and whether it was morning or evening now, he couldn’t tell, but it was certainly no longer close to midnight, as it had been when he’d stepped out of the garage. He watched the sun for a while, realised it was slowly vanishing. Now, now was the hour to melt a sailor’s heart and sadden him with longing. Now the hour of bells that seem to mourn the dying of the light.

            In place of bells, he had only the wind, and even there he began to listen less and fix his gaze on the path ahead.

            Nowhere to go but up.


End file.
